Crafting a list of the best sci-fi movies ever made is no easy task. Sci-fi movies boomed in the 1950s, with the likes of The Fly and The Blob, then became even bigger in th🌠e 60s with 2001: A Space Odyssey and Farenheit 451. From aliens to🍒 space voyages to dystopian futures, the genre has given us everything we've ever wanted in more when it comes to cinema - and the hits just keep on coming.
Our list covers everything from cute Pixar robots and sand-covered planets to journeys into the frozen unknown and well, Star Wars, of course. From Ridley Scott to Terry Gilliam and even M. Night Shyamalan, there's something on this list for everyone. The entꦫries here signify some of the bravest, most out-of-this-world creativity we'♓ve seen on the silver screen.
It's no coincidence that most of the best 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:new movies are in the science fiction . But before you scroll through our list of 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:upcoming movies, dive right into our ranking of the 30 best sci-fi movies of alꦿl time. Whether it's movie night with the family, or you're looking for your new favorite flick, we've got everything you need and more.
30. Brazil
Year: 1985
Director: Terry Gilliam
Dystopian scienc♍e fiction is a great way to turn a lens onꦐ society and skewer those in power, and Terry Gilliam’s slapstick homage to George Orwell’s 1984 sticks two fingers up to The Man over and over, all while telling one of the wackiest sci-fi stories ever committed to celluloid.
Jonathan Pryce plays Sam Lowry, a dissatisfied worker at the Ministry of Education who&🍃rsquo;♔s desperate to break free from the shackles of a totalitarian regime. Repeatedly dreaming of coming to the rescue of a beautiful woman while trying to locate a suspected terrorist named Archibald Tuttle, Lowry comes up against a fantastical cast of characters. Much like his 1995 movie 12 Monkeys, Gilliam and his production design team imbue Brazil with a surreal, dreary near-future setting, which becomes as much a character as anyone in the movie. A true classic.
29. High Life
Year: 2018
Director: Claire Denis
Science fiction can deal with huge technological ideas like space missions, time travel and Artificial Intelligence while at the same time focusing on the subtle, intimate aspects of humanity, and with High Life, director Claire Denis does exactly this. The film follows a group of criminals sent into space towards a black hole while taking part in scientific experiments, centring on Monte (Robert Pattinson) and his daughter as they become the last survivors of this damned mission to the outer reaches of the solarꦐ system.
Pattinson is joined by Juliette Binoche, Mia Goth, and Andre Benjamin, who all turn in stunning performances under Denis’ direction🍎. High Life is big, beautiful, complex, and at times extremely sexy. It&rs♔quo;s a brilliant mix of sci-fi ideas with a lot of feels while remaining thoroughly entertaining, and it is well deserving of a place amongst the best.
28. Signs
Year: 2002
Director: M. Night Shyamalan
After exploding onto the scen⭕e in 1999 with the acclaimed ghost story The Sixth Sense and his stealth superhero movie Unbreakable the following year, writer/director M. Night Shyamalan turned his attention to sci-fi in 2002 with Signs, an alien inva🐼sion film that focuses on how one family copes when extraterrestrials land on Earth.
Mel Gibson plays a widowed former reverend living with his children (Rory Culkin and an adorable Abigail Breslin) and brother (Joaquin Phoenix) in rural Pennsylvania when the aliens arrive, and S💖hyamalan uses the invasion to explore themes of faith and family in the face of extraordinary circumstances. There may be criticism levelled at Signs for things lik𒆙e the aliens being allergic to water, but other than a couple of slightly daft details, it’s basically perfect and also includes one of the most effective jump-scares in sci-fi horror.
You can read more on this classic with our 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Signs review.
27. Stalker
Year: 1979
Director: Andrei Tarkovsky
In a totalitarian society, a shaven-h𝐆eaded guide known as Stalker 𒉰(Aleksandr Kajdanovsky) escorts a writer and a scientist to the forbidden region of “The Zone”, where all one's wishes can allegedly be granted.
Made and set amid some of the most austere and industrially polluted Russian landscapes ever committed to celluloid, Andrei Tarkovsky's epic inquiry into freedom and fai𓄧th presents an arduous journey for the spectator but conjures up its own mystical universe with majestic conviction. Since its release, Stalker has become a classic of the genre – and one ♍worth seeking out immediately.
26. Star Trek: Wrath of Khan
Year: 1982
Director: Nicholas Meyer
Star Trek: The Motion Picture, the first big-screen adventure for the series, was an epic take on the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Star Trek timeline – and one criticised for not featuring enough action. The producers took this to heart, as they hired Nicholas Meyer (Time After Time) to dir♊ect a feature film that doubles down on the thrills. Star Trek: Wrath of Khan makes for a warmer movie that still features huge amounts of drama.
Wrath of Khan reaches into the Original Series’ history to find a villain – Khan – who's more grounded and intimidating than the vast majority of Star Trek’s other antagonists. Ruthless and ferociously intelligent, Khan’s re-emergence forces the trainee Enterprise crew to rally harder than ever before, raising the personal stakes to 💖new highs. And really, when is Star Trek better than when it 🍬puts the crew’s humanity front and centre?
24. Silent Running
Year: 1972
Director: Douglas Trumbull
Environmental concerns are something that sci-fi can explore perhaps better than any other genre, taking a leap forward in time to examine where humanity might be in the future if we continue down a particular path. What humans are doing to Earth may feel like a very modern anxiety, but issues like deforestation were being dealt with in science fiction in the early '70s with wonderful films like Silent Running.
Bruce Dern plays Freeman Lowell, a botanist carefully maintaining huge greenhouse domes on a spaceship, nurturing a variety of vegetation destined for reforestation of the planet. When the domes and his beloved plants come under threat, Lowell enlists the help of three little robots - Huey, Louie and Dewey - to save them. Cue lots of deep space drama and some moments of hilarity (especially when the robots are🍨 programmed to play poker) in one of the best sci-fi movies ever made.
23. Independence Day
Year: 1996
Director: Roland Emmerich
Big budgets! Big stars! Big explosions! Sometimes, with sci-fi movies, more is more, and there’s perhaps no better example of this than Roland Emmerich’s mid-90s blockbuster Independence Day.
Aliens have invaded Earth (again), and it’s up to Bill Pullman’s POTUS, Will Smith’s fighter pilot and Jeff Goldblum’s scientist nerd genius to work out a way to save humanity. This being the nineties, there’s plenty of heartfelt optimism and a fair bit of American flag-waving, but at the end of the day, it’s up to the whole planet to send these war-happy extraterrestrials packing. A massive supporting cast, an endlessly quotable script and some frenetic effects-laden set pieces make Independence Day one of the most thrilling sci-fi watches and 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best action movies of all time.
22. Dune: Part Two
Year: 2024
Director: Denis Villeneuve
Frank Herbert published the first Dune book in 1965. The '70s saw at least two stalled attempts to put his ‘unfilmable’ epic on the big screen, and visionary director David Lynch then made a decent stab at it in 1984. However, it took until 2021 for talents and techniques to catch up with what was needed to make a faithful adaptation worthy of the source material.
Off the back of two hugely effective and successful sci-fi bangers – Arrival and Blade Runner 2049 - Denis Villeneuve took on the challenge of Dune, working with a massive ensemble cast and somehow managed to portray the desert world of Arrakis with all the spectacle it warrants. Then, in 2024, the second part came out and blew audiences away even more. Dialling up ever💙ything to 11, Villeneuve delivers another sci-fi blockbuster that will no doubt be used as the yardstick for all similar movies to come, the way The Lord of the Rings is used for fantasy. This is how you do it, folks.
Read our 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Dune: Part 2 review for more information.
21. The Abyss
Year: 1989
Director: 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:James Cameron
The first of four James Caremon movies on this list, The Abyss makes for an exciting – at ౠtimes terrifying – underwater adventure. Upon release, behind-the-scenes d🍎ifficulties overshadowed the movie’s actual content, and it was an initial box-office flop. Yet, look past the real-life drama, and The Abyss makes for a wonderful sci-fi movie that features Cameron’s recognisable flourishes – tough-talking military figures, world-leading (though now slightly dated) CGI, and a hugely heartfelt story.
The Abyss follows a crew of American roughnecks who are employed to help ♌discover why a US submarine near the Cayman Trough mysteriously sunk. When they find the wreckage, they discover something truly unexpected. There are a few different cuts out there, and we recommend watching the Director’s Cut.
20. WALL-E
Year: 2008
Director: Andrew Stanton
Almost every original animation produced by Pixar has been a groundbreaking classic. Never has that been more true than with its film, WALL-E (aka one of the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best Pixar movies ever𒈔🐬 made). It tells the story of an ordinary robot who ends up saving the human race.
WALL-E is a bold piece oꦡf filmmaking: the opening moments are dialogue-free; the distant future sees humankind becoming blobs of meat, unable to stand on our own two feet; and Earth is a desolate junkyard devoid of life. That’s all pretty heavy for a children’s movie. Yet, amid the bleak dystopian setting is a remarkably heart-warming tale of an innocent, simple droid finding love with a futuristic companion, EVE. There have been few sci-fi movies as oddly romantic.
19. Total Recall
Year: 1990
Director: Paul Verhoeven
Paul Verhoeven’s good at science fiction. A filmmaker of excess, his style seems to🃏 naturally lend its🎐elf to the high concepts and futuristic visuals of the genre. In 1987, he directed the ultraviolent RoboCop, and a decade later, he made the giant-alien-bug war satire Starship Troopers, but in between, he gave us perhaps his most successful sci-fi movie: Total Recall.
Based on legendary sci-fi writer Philip K. Dick’s novel We Can Remember It For You Wholesale, Total Recall tells the story of Quaid (Arnold Schwarzenegger), who visits a company that will implant a virtual vacation on Mars into his memory, but a lot of twists and turns arise when it appears that Quaid may, in fact, be a secret agent on a mission to bring down a Martian dictator. Shar🌠on Stone, Michael Ironside and Rachel Ticotin co-star to help tell this story of espionage, corporate greed and social inequality tha🍌t still packs a punch to this day.
18. Nope
Year: 2022
Director: Jordan Peele
Jordan Peele has made an incredible name for himself in recent years with his hugely successful and entertaining horror films, which deal with enduring Black issues through a genre lens. In 2022, he went bigger, bolder, and ꦚmore sci-fi with his third film, Nope🦹.
Daniel Kaluuya and Keke Palmer star as a horse-wrangling brother and sister living in inland California who bear witness to a fascinating alien presence and set out to capture evidence o🅘f the UFO they name ‘Jean Jacket’. Peele has cited many classic science fiction films as inspiration for Nope, including Jurassic Park, Close Encounters of the Third Kind an💖d Signs, and his encyclopaedic knowledge of cinema is on show here for all to see. Nope is a smart and chilling look at Hollywood and exploitative power through a wondrous sci-fi lens.
If you are ready for thrills, read our 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Nope review.
17. Under the Skin
Year: 2013
Director: Jonathan Glazer
A cold, washed-out Glasgow is an unusual location for a cerebral sci-fi flick. But this is Jonathan Glazer's point: weird shit can happen anywhere, so why not 🐼there? Scarlett Johansson stars as a perplexed extraterrestrial disguised as a perplexed young woman who ambles around the Glaswegian streets, luring men into her Transit van.
This is a haunting exercise in painting a mood. Don't go in expecting a dense plot or a clearly outlined goal. This is a surreal, twisted, low-key flick 🐬that will gnaw at your brain long after you finish. It also birthed the Scarlett Johansson falling down meme ꧙and features the most bizarre response to carrot cake ever.
16. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Year: 2004
Director: Michel Gondry
Director Michel Gondry’s second feature collaboration with Being John Malkovich writer Charlie Kaufman is exactly what you expect from that combinatꦐion of talent: a sweet, funny, heartbreaking, and maudlin wonder. The movie centres on Joel and Clementine, who meet on a train and are immediately drawn to each other. Turns out, they’ve been in a relationship before, but had their memories erased following a messy breakup.
Eternal Sunshine – which follows their histor🐻y in reverse as Joel’s memories are torn down around him during the erasure process – is a warm, sad, intelligent, but ultimately hopeful examination of human nature and relat🦋ionships. It also explores the potential of its concept further than its core story, making for a near-flawless sci-fi movie.
15. Arrival
Year: 2016
Director: Denis Villeneuve
Remember when Hollywood made big-budget, epic sci-fi movies aimed almost exclusively at adults? Denis Villeneuve does. The second of the director’s output to appear on this list, ﷽Arrival blends the arresting spectacle of alien contact with the intelligent, distinctly personal story of a linguist recruited to find a way to communicate.
Favouring affecting, emotional drama and the discussion of big questions over lasers and explosions, Arrival’s maturity and sophistication – highlighted by some fantastic lead performances, namely Amy Adams (robbed of an Oscar nomination) – made it one of the best movies of 2016. It's also on our list of the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best alien movies of all time because it's just that good.
